


The Forest Came From Stone

by LouPF



Series: Walking in Starlit Fields (and Memories) [5]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Elf Culture & Customs, Established Relationship, Fangorn, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 14:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: Legolas insists that Fangorn speaks to him. Gimli has no idea what he's talking about - until Legolas slows down to teach him.





	The Forest Came From Stone

We stood in Fangorn, in-between trees wider than the widest stone pillar of Khazad-dûm and taller almost than Erebor herself. It was not beautiful in any way I had ever encountered beautiful before – then again, neither was Legolas, until I’d seen him where he belonged.

I did not belong here, like he did not belong in caves, and yet… I was not _unwelcome_.

“Listen to them!” Legolas exclaimed, turning to me with a smile brighter than the sun setting the leaves a faded emerald. “Listen, Gimli!”

I frowned – tried to listen, but found nothing for my ears to latch onto, except the sounds of the forest – an animal here, a wind rustling leaves there. “To what?” I asked, because he might have meant those sounds the same way I might mean ‘listen to the echo of the water’ in the Glittering Caves.

“The voices,” said Legolas, and turned to me fully. A look of wonder passed over him. “You do not hear?”

“Nay, not a single voice,” I said, shrugging helplessly.

Legolas knelt before me, shuffling his feet about until he sat on eye-level with me. “Close your eyes,” he whispered, fingers fluttering across my face. “Breathe, meleth, and let the forest take you.”

I trusted him more than I trusted myself, at times. I closed my eyes. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Feel,” said Legolas, which was not helpful in any way, shape or form.

But I felt, and I sat with his hand on my face, and I _felt_.

It was a slow thing. I evened out my breath and tried to listen – to take in only the sounds – to slow and let myself exist. I’d done it before, to access the locked away parts of me – the parts one aren’t supposed to remember – and it wasn’t hard to do it again.

Exist. Purely exist. And listen.

And feel.

It bloomed, from my chest at first and then further out, whispers and knowledge and memories clucking through me like an underground silver stream.

It was the trees, and the leaves, and the hush of wind. It was the flowers and grass and berries and roots, going deep underground, flowing further, digging, diving until it became stone. And I understood stone. I knew stone. Stone spoke and sung and murmured.

And the forest came from stone.

“_Oh_,” I whispered, and when I opened my eyes, Legolas was staring right at me, a slow and warm smile upon his lips. “Oh, I see.”

“You _hear_,” Legolas corrected, and sounded like he was fighting the giddy down. He swooped down and kissed me, gently and softly, yet too quick for me to return the kiss before he pulled back. “We’ll make an Elf of you yet, Gimli nin.”

I scrunched my nose at him, blinking up against the sunlight that set his hair ablaze. “I’d rather not,” I said, and he laughed such a beautiful laugh I could hear it, still, when we laid to sleep.


End file.
